


Lower Your Shield

by ImagineAvengers



Category: Avengers (Comics), MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-09-24 10:53:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20357275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImagineAvengers/pseuds/ImagineAvengers
Summary: Loki x platonic/teen!reader)





	1. Chapter 1

“So many stairs!”

You could hear 2012Hulk coming down the stairwell at Stark Tower, his heavy steps shaking the floor beneath you and he still had several levels yet to take before reaching the lobby where everything had gone to complete and utter hell. The plan was rapidly falling apart and you were powerless to slow the destruction.

“Stark, what is it?” 2012Thor asked the past Tony as he struggled next to him. “Is it your chest machine?”

You watched in awe as Scott kicked the case holding the Tesseract across the lobby and towards your current Tony where he picked it up almost too easily and strolled towards the exit at the far end. “Meet me in the alley, I’m gonna grab a slice-“ he tried, but the stairwell door slammed open and he was met head-on by an enormous green rage monster.

“No stairs!”

The case was knocked clean from Tony’s hand, spilling open before you could catch it. You were torn between helping Tony up and chasing after the Tesseract; one choice would help your friend, and the other choice could save billions. In your decision as you turned to hurry for the case you stopped cold. In a complete wave of slow-motion terror, the lock had broken and the Tesseract had come to a halt at 2012Loki’s feet.

“Don’t,” you whispered, knowing full well that he would hear you, even over the mass commotion. “Please, push it back to me.”

His eyes locked with yours, holding your gaze in a moment that took forever for the two of you, but the blink of a second for everyone else. His mouth was covered and bound closed, but you could see the question in his eyes, practically screaming to know who you were. He knew you but he just didn’t know how he knew you.

He couldn’t know, it was too early for this version of him, yet still there it was, the fire of recognition glaring back at you so strongly that you couldn’t look away. He slowly bent down and took the Tesseract in hand, but he kept his eyes on you.

“Someone grab the cube!” you called out, but everyone was too focused on 2012Tony and Thor and his newly found life-saving thunder tap.

If only the team had listened to you. You were experienced at this; you knew the risks of time travel and you knew all the ways that this could go wrong before they began to play out right in front of you. You were a time slider, being able to weave in and out of timelines with ease, but they had insisted that it was too big of a mission to do alone. You had helped them map this out and warned them about what their bodies and minds would go through, but you never stopped to consider yourself. Maybe they were right, it was too much for one person to do, but as you watched Loki disappear into the portal of the space stone, you suddenly realized one thing that none of you had ever considered.

It hadn’t been that long since you had lost him, the Loki of their timeline, and you knew that he would be here. You had prepared everyone else but had never prepared yourself to see your father again, and in a flash, he was gone.

~~~

The next day, after the battle was won and two of your teammates and friends were lost, Thor had said his goodbye to you privately where your secret could be maintained. He knew your lineage, but only because you shared that piece of a future timeline that Loki had created by taking the cube. It had taken a tremendous amount of convincing for him to believe that he was your uncle, but once he accepted it you were the only family he had left and now it tore at his heart to leave you.

“Will you go find him?” he asked quietly. The two of you stood on the cliff just beyond New Asgard, looking out over the chopping waves in a wind that pushed your balance. His long hair and overgrown beard was making him look like a transient, though it wasn’t far from the truth.

“I don’t know,’” you sighed heavily, “I’ve been in this timeline for years now, and I’m not sure if I have it in me to go back. I left that version of my dad for a reason. I’d rather remember the one that I found here, the one who became the man we both knew he could be. I’ve just finally begun to let him go…I don’t know, Thor. After all this…I don’t know what I know anymore.”

“Agreed. But do consider a visit. This life is too short to miss opportunities, and you have a skill that many would covet. You can see him again any time that you choose. Some of us are not so fortunate.”

“I’ll think about it, on one condition,” you smirked, turning to look at him.

“Hmm, what’s that?”

“Eat a salad…just maybe add one in here and there…and some water.”

“Fine, I’ll consider it. Now come here,” he quieted, becoming serious as he pulled you in for one final hug, “tell him I said hello, and please, maybe swing by and see your old Uncle Thor once in a while too.”

“I don’t even know where you’ll be?”

“I’m sure that Quail will find a lovely place for me to make a home,” Thor smiled, releasing you and turning towards the ship. “I can’t imagine that he’ll stand having me on board for long.”

~~~

From that day, it had taken three years to rebuild the Avengers compound, and the team that moved back into what was nothing more than a shell now was considerably smaller, though nonetheless tested beyond where the original team had known for themselves. Moving day was uneventful at best, with trucks and trailers bringing in the last of the equipment that Tony had yet to complete, leaving it for Peter to decide what to keep and what to continue working on. Suitcases were haphazardly scattered in hallways of the upper levels as rooms were chosen, despite Sam doing his best to map them out and assign them. 

His new role as leader wasn’t off to a great start, but he would get there soon enough. You had taken a peek into that future on a day not so long ago despite your better judgment. A little peek ahead never hurt anything before. 

“Please tell me that you found the right room,” he grumbled under his breath as you approached him, lost in the mess on his desk. “I can’t take one more complaint right now.”

“I found it, I’m good.”

“Knew I could count on you,” Sam smiled, glancing up from his work for only a second. The phone began to ring, but at the sight of the number he let it go to voicemail without concern. “Where are we at with Parker and those trucks out there?”

“It looked like he was about done,” you shrugged. “How are you doing? Need any help?”

“Nah,” he exhaled slowly, rubbing his eyes and pushing back in his chair, “there’s nothing here that can’t wait for me to get around to it. The world knows that we’re off-line this week with the move in, so if it’s not the end of the world…again…then it doesn’t get my time. Besides, Fury is sending in some SHIELD guys to take one of the new buildings as a remote HQ. He thinks having them nearby will make things easier for both sides.”

“Sure, makes sense…” you trailed off.

“You okay?”

“Hmm?” you hummed absentmindedly, now staring out the window at one of the drivers of the line of trucks along the entry of the grounds. “Yeah…I’m fine…”

Sam checked your eyeline and turned his head to follow it, looking out the window to try to see what had caught your attention. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, but your demeanor had changed so significantly and so quickly that he knew better than to trust his instincts here. “No, something out there grabbed your attention. What’s going on?”

“I’ll be right back, I think I know that guy.”

“Oh, so it’s a guuuuy,” he mocked, sitting back down and no longer interested. You didn’t even take the time to argue and willingly accepted the method that worked to get him to back off.

As you approached the truck, your hands began to shake with the anticipation of what…or who you were about to see. It wasn’t often that surprises hit you, given your ability, but you hadn’t traversed time for quite a while now and had chosen to live in this timeline along with those already a part of it. You had yearned for a little taste of that normalcy in a life that otherwise had none. Maybe you were wrong, and maybe your mind was playing a trick on you. Sleep had been difficult, so it wouldn’t be out of the question for exhaustion to be kicking in.

Also, no one else had made any movement towards the truck as if anything were wrong, so with each step you had gotten closer to talking yourself completely out of concern that you would find anything other than a random guy from SHIELD behind the wheel. Before the last few steps you looked around the grounds one last time, and still no one seemed to care about anything going on here.

Changing your mind, you turned away and began to head back to the building, but his voice calling your name stopped your feet, turning you back around so quickly that you nearly tumbled over as your knees buckled beneath you.

“Dad?!”


	2. Chapter 2

“(Y/N),” he rushed towards you, eyes wide in both excitement and perhaps terror, “why have you not returned home? Do you realize how I’ve struggled to find you? I cannot manipulate time as easily as you.”

You looked around quickly, checking the scene to be sure that no one was paying either of you any attention, and found fast relief that things appeared clear. You allowed Loki to approach you; you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of making any further move, as to not give him an idea that you wanted to actually get any closer to him. “I thought I made it very clear that I was leaving for good. I explicitly told you not to look for me, so why are you here?”

“I wasn’t looking, at least not at first,” he began, “but then something in the universe shifted. In a way that I’ve never felt before. Something must have opened a window for me to connect, but I sensed that you were here, in this time, so I’ve worked with unyielding diligence to find you.”

“Well, if nothing else, it’s smart that you’re disguised. I have no idea how I’d begin to explain this to the team.”

“The team?”

“The Avengers.”

“Oh, dear lord, tell me that you’re not one of them?”

“If I did, that would be a lie, and I thought I let that family trait go when I walked away from you,” you snapped. “Go home, Father. I don’t want you here.”

Loki took a step back, as if your words physically pushed him further away from you in his agony. He looked fully shocked and you had no idea why, because the man you left behind in his timeline certainly shouldn’t have cared so much that you had run. There was no love lost there, and it was in no way a secret to anyone in that previous life that you had nearly forgotten until this moment.

“(Y/N), please, let me explain-“

“No!” you hissed through clenched teeth, stepping up to him with eyes filled with fire and pain alike. “You’ve had enough chances to explain! I haven’t returned home because of _you_. I found a better version of you here, in this timeline. I found a version of you who actually cared about me, and I loved him. A man who died a hero, protecting Asgard and wearing the name Odinson, standing alongside his brother with pride for the first time. I promised him that I would never go back to find you. He renounced that person and wanted me to know him as I did here. That man was my father. Not you.”

“B-but we…we are the same?”

“Oh, believe me, you’re not. So please, for both of us…go home.”

~~~

Loki had wandered around a nearby town for hours, aimlessly and lost in thought, determined to show you that he wasn’t the person that you thought he was. He had been present in this timeline for quite a while now, living a life that he was never meant to have before that Tesseract slid into his foot at Stark Tower to allow his escape. He could feel that this existence was wrong and out of alignment from his true path, but there was nothing that he could do about that now. You had been born in his time and belonged nowhere near this one; it was that birth in a branch reality that had given you the ability to slide through time and he could only imagine the life that allowed you. He wanted to share it with you and to help alleviate your fears of the things you might see, but clearly, the days of him being a mentor and guide to you were over. He had created an impossible rift to traverse between you.

Once he had found you at the compound, taking on the identity of a SHIELD agent seemed the most logical choice, but what he couldn’t understand is how you saw through the illusion. You had never been able to do that before and it left him uneasy. You weren’t the child that he had known for so many years, and it was obvious that his influence on you was fading fast.

Loki had been lost in thought so sufficiently that he nearly missed his call to return to the compound to continue the work he had assumed as a part of his disguise. He still wanted to follow through on his plan, even if it were beginning to fall apart just a bit. He drove the few miles back to the building, coasting the truck slowly as if it could offer any kind of protection from you should you catch sight of him again. His breathing quickened, uncharacteristically panicked for him, and it left him uncertain about his entire plan.

He nearly turned the vehicle around when he stopped at the sight before him; flashing and blinding red and blue lights glowing into the evening sky. In the distance he could see one paramedic was putting who he believed to be Sam into one ambulance, and he feared that he saw you going into the other. Loki hurried forward, slamming the truck to a halt and rushing to get to you as he dropped his illusion in a choice to never speak to you with anything but complete truth ever again.

“(Y/N)!”

“Sir, please, stay back,” the medic tried, to no avail and only getting pushed aside.

“She is my daughter and I have every right to be here. (Y/N), darling, I’m here,” he moved forward, stepping up into the rig to sit at your side. You appeared to be asleep, which he preferred to the thought of unconscious, but the stillness unnerved him nonetheless. “Someone tell me what happened here.”

“Loki?” a new voice answered, though it wasn’t the response he was looking for. Wanda was approaching now, her appearance as disheveled and broken as yours, but she had the good fortune of being awake and able to interact. “Loki, we thought…Thor told us…”

“I have no time to explain the details,” he huffed, “but please tell me what happened. I can give you more later but (Y/N) is my only concern and I can wait no longer. She…” he paused, taking a deep and shaking breath, “she is all that I have now, even if she refuses me.”

“Tell me first, who is she to you?” Wanda pressed. “She’s my friend and I can’t break her trust.”

“If you absolutely must know, she is my only child, and I prefer that you tell me straight away when you know that I have methods to get the information I need. Please, I do not wish to resort to those measures. Tell me.”

Wanda’s expression shifted with his revelation and again with his vague mention of threat, but ultimately, she would concede as she felt the genuine and urgent concern that she couldn’t deny. She was worried about you as well, but if Loki was telling the truth, you would need him much more than her friendship alone. “She was helping Sam to recalibrate one of the engines on the quinjet and there was an explosion, that’s all I know.”

“Will she be alright?” he asked the medic as he continued to work. “I insist that I stay with her.”

“Fine by me,” the man answered, “but we need to roll. Ma’am, you can ride with the other patient if you want to, or you can meet us there.”

“I’ll meet you there, Bucky is with Sam.” Wanda gave a final look to Loki with a nod that tried to convey her belief but also to let him know that the conversation between them was far from over. “I will see you there shortly. Once she is stable, we’ll talk more.”

“Agreed.”

~~~

Several hours later, Loki was keeping his promise and had yet to move at all from your side. He had followed you to each test and kept the smallest amount of distance allowed from you during surgery and was diligently seated next to your bed as you now slept. The hospital lacked both interesting reading material and nourishment that appealed to him, despite Wanda’s continued offer to get him anything that he could possibly need. She hadn’t pushed him yet to talk more but he knew that the conversation was unavoidable; he had given a great deal of thought to what he might say, and how he could explain the situation that brought him to you now, but his worry for you muddled his mind and he hadn’t made much for progress.

“There are not many people who can sneak up on me.”

“(Y/N)?” he perked up at the raspy, quiet sound of your voice. “I didn’t mean to. However, there was no sneaking involved. You’ve been asleep for hours and I’ve been waiting for you to wake in plain sight.”

“What happened? I was with Sam in the hangar…” you stopped, the dryness in your throat cutting your voice short. Loki stood and hurried to grab your cup of water, holding it steady to help you drink. His hand was steady, but his eyes searched your expression nervously for any sign of pain that he feared seeing. “Thank you, that’s better. I was with Sam…Sam…” you faded out as your mind tried to catch up beyond the haze of medications. “Sam! Oh my god, is he okay? He was closer to the jet than I was-“

“Yes, darling, he woke about an hour ago,” he tried to reassure, “and he’s doing well, as are you. The hope is that you will both be sent home in the morning.”

Pushing yourself up slowly to rest your weight back on your elbows, albeit shakily, you sat for a moment and just looked at the man, trying to read the most unreadable person you had ever known. He looked different somehow, his expression soft and truly concerned in a way you hadn’t seen from him before. This was reminiscent of the Loki you had known as the father you had the fortune to choose for yourself, and you began to wonder if you could guide this man to the same place. Maybe he wasn’t too far gone, and this was the opportunity that couldn’t be ignored. Normally, accidents were unwelcome and destructive, but maybe this time it was for a reason, and the universe was giving you an unavoidable message.

“Will you come with us?”

“To…to the compound?” he stammered slightly. “You want me to be there? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. You’ve been here for me when I know what a risk it is for you to be without your illusion. I think I owe you the time to talk, at the least.”

“(Y/N), you owe me nothing. Where else in the universe could I be other than right here? I’ve found you after all this time, and I want to prove to you that I have no intention of losing you again. I want to be the version of me that proves my love for you which has not changed. I want to be the father you deserve.”

_ **Next chapter in process** _


End file.
